A new cyber hacking unit believed to be loosely affiliated with the Egyptian military called the “Egyptian Cyber Army” has emerged to combat the Islamic State (IS/ISIS/ISIL) and other Islamist terror groups such as the Muslim Brotherhood; doing so on social media sites and other Web channels.
Last week, the group displayed its tech expertise when it hacked an ISIS-posted audio message. The Egyptian Cyber Army then changed the audio, its transcript, and left behind an insignia that resembled that of the Egyptian military’s.
Some believe that the Egyptian Cyber Army is an independent entity, and it borrows inspiration from the ‘hacktivist’ Syrian Electronic Army outfit, Mashable reported.
A spokesman for the newly developed unit said that the group’s members are a mixture of Egyptians from civilian, law enforcement, and military backgrounds. All however, are united behind the leadership of Egyptian President Abdel Fattah el-Sisi, the spokesperson added.
The cyber unit’s primary focus is to combat groups that the Egyptian government recognizes its enemies. Terror outfits such as ISIS, the Muslim Brotherhood, and Sinai-based Ansar Bayt al-Maqdis resemble some of the chief threats to the current governing body.
A spokesman for the unit told Mashable about how the Cyber Army hacked the ISIS audio. ISIS leader Abu Bakr al Baghdadi “was delivering a message to all extremists all over the MIddle East and my country [Egypt] that you have to use your weapons in the faces of the government and our people so we took it down and replaced it with a very popular song,” he said. ” All the people instead of hearing this pig heard our song and laughed.”
The spokesman added: “We are an idea, not only a team. When we started the team we accepted that all the people can work in screwing the Brotherhood or ISIS or any radical Islamic party.”
The group has also claimed to have hacked left-wing U.S. based websites such as the Open Society Foundation and the U.S. Middle East Partnership Initiative.
The Egyptian Cyber Army spokesman said their next likely target is al-Furqan, one of the Islamic State’s media arms.
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